TOPIC: What board games are you BUYING?

The What games have you playing? has been a very successful thread for keeping up with what everyone is playing so I decided to kick this one off. When posting what your buying give some reasons why you pulled trigger. Writing out your thought process may help other people and even help you with making your decision.

I have finally jumped in to the money pit and am the proud owner of the X-Wing Miniatures starter set. I can't wait to learn and play this one for the first time. Any suggestions on which ships to pick up to round out decent Imperial and Rebel squadrons?

If you're in it for the long haul I'd just recommend buying 1 of each expansion in the order they were released.

You will also want to buy a second core set at some point most likely.

I'd recommend going twos or threes on all of the "main" trilogy ships- A/B/Y wings, TIE Interceptors, TIE Bombers. Only one TIE Advanced because...Vader. Get at least one more X-Wing- you can in a second starter (recommended), but you do kind of want the expansion pack one since there are unique cards there. The second starter will give you two more TIEs, which you do want. I have nine TIEs because I wanted three flights of three. As for the medium ships, The Falcon (YT-1300) and the Slave 1 (Firespray) are awesome, if you're not worried about running certain lists competitively one of each is all you need. The other medium ships, not essential. I wouldn't even worry about the transport or the blockade runner for a while. Nor would I get too concerned about Scum and Villainy. I haven't even bought a single ship from that wave yet.

The aces boxes are really cool, but really not essential unless you're playing for reals down at the FLGS or whatever.

As for the other "non film" ships, there are some really good ones. I really like the HWK-290, especially because it's from Dark Forces. The special TIEs are neat. Dash Rendar's ship is very cool. And of course, the Z95 Headhunter is bad ass. But again, I would think that starting out, sticking with the film ships is the way to go for a while.

This gives you enough to run the 2 X-Wing 2 B-Wing rebel bread and butter, it gives you enough to do any variation of the Tie Swarm. It gives you 2 of both sides best pound for pound fighter (B wing and the Phantom) it gives you one of each of the most iconic and most fun of the medium ships. It lets you run 4 interceptor or 4 X-wing build, and the A wings let you get the Push The Limit pilot talent, which is one of the most fun and useful in the game. Save for the Tie Phantoms, you also don't get any ships that aren't original trilogy canon.

So what don't you get?

Y wings, which you'll almost never use ahead of B wings or the Falcon
Tie Advanced which are useless save for Vader (Maybe the cards in the Imperial giant ship fix this...,)
E wings which are too expensive to justify over B wings
Tie Bombers which still don't work (but might once Wave 7 comes out?)
Tie Defenders which I want so badly to make work, but just aren't worth taking over Phantoms or their equivalent cost in Interceptors or Fighters.
Lambda Shuttle... which admittedly is very fun but doesn't have a ton of utility.
Y2100, which I love, but isn't the Falcon and might not mean anything to you if you haven't read Shadows of the Empire
Decimator, which is kinda crappy
The HWK, which is really bad ass but you might not be familiar with
Z-95 which is the rebel Tie Fighter, though I never found it to be nearly as fun as a Tie Swarm.
or any of the Scum ships or large ships.

Now, if any of those ships are among your favorites or hold a special place in your heart, go for em. I especially see getting one Tie Advanced for Darth Vader and a Y wing or Tie bomber to round out the "real" ships, but I think my list gives you a good toolkit of ships you'll always want to fly without having to look for excuses to use them, and enough options to make several viable lists.

I agree with the above, except I think the shuttle is worth a buy, and I would not get a phantom until you've played for a while. If people are not expecting it and so aren't list building for it, a game against a phantom can really pu people off the game. Frankly, in our casual games the phantom hasn't come out in months as it forces all list building to go down certain paths.

Came back from the store with the Gladiator, a Nebulon-B and Corvette.
The Nebulon and Corvette are nice complements to what's in the base set giving some better upgrade pairings - And there are some upgrades that make the Nebulon an even better Squad Command Ship. The Gladiator fits it's name, it looks like a brawler of a ship that I can't see doing much more than just throwing itself into the middle of the scrum with black dice all around that thing.

Anyone played PICTOMANIA? I want to hear about this from trusted sources.

We're really enjoying it. Played it first at ConnCon and I though Mark was going to throw us out of the game hall since we were so loud.

I've introduced it to a number of crowds and it's gone over quite well. However we had one guy who spent so much time working on his drawings that he never guessed anything. Round after round after round... Not a wining plan.

I picked up Tragedy Looper. I'm not sure who I'm going to play it with yet. It's tricky because of how the hidden information and not playing over the same scenario goes, and the fact that I probably won't want to play the first two over and over again. Luckily it seems easy enough to make your own or find some on BGG. My girlfriend expressed interest after I explained to her what it's about, but the only games I've played with her so far are Chess, some simple games like Skull, Red7, Hanabi, and social deduction games.

Ordered Specter Ops, the latest game from Plaid Hat that seems to be causing a ruckus. I'm a big fan of deduction/hidden movement games so I decided to hop on this one before it goes Dead of Winter and becomes impossible to find.

Also grabbed the stand alone expansion for Epic Spell Wars. Glad to see that game get some support.

Ordered Specter Ops, the latest game from Plaid Hat that seems to be causing a ruckus. I'm a big fan of deduction/hidden movement games so I decided to hop on this one before it goes Dead of Winter and becomes impossible to find.

I just saw a copy of Dead of Winter at the local Barnes & Noble if you want me to pick it up for you, Egg.